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Composer/Conductor
George Benjamin debuts as Music Director Ensemble
Modern makes first West Coast appearance with works by Into the Little Hill, George Benjamin’s chamber opera, receives West Coast premiere Additional Festival highlights include the U.S. premiere of Steve Potter’s Paradigms, Indian Raga with Aashish Khan, a three-part symposium with guest panelists, and free Beyond the Bowl events Ojai’s tradition of inviting a different music director for each season guarantees variety and vitality across festivals. What this means for the 2010 Ojai Music Festival is music-making of the highest order; programming that enchants and challenges; and an encounter with one of the most intellectual and infectiously curious musical minds of our age, George Benjamin.”— Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris (Revised
March 17, 2010) —Ojai, California -- Ojai Music
Festival Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris and 2010 Music Director
George Benjamin have announced final programming for the upcoming
Festival. From June 10 to June 13, 2010, the Ojai Music Festival
will explore the works and celebrate musical relationships of its
music director, George Benjamin. Marking its West Coast premiere,
the Ensemble Modern, a longtime artistic partner of Benjamin’s
and one of the world’s preeminent new music ensembles, will
perform four distinct programs during the 2010 Festival. The 2010 Ojai Music Festival explores the music of Benjamin’s teachers and mentors, Pierre Boulez and Olivier Messiaen; of his students, Steve Potter (a California native, whose Paradigms will receive its U.S. premiere at the 2010 Festival) and Saed Haddad; by his colleague and friend, Oliver Knussen; and music he simply enjoys, from Ligeti to Stravinsky to Henry Purcell to Indian ragas. Highlights of the upcoming Festival include Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus and Oiseaux Exotiques, Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto, and the West Coast premiere of Benjamin’s chamber opera, Into the Little Hill. Hailed as “the opera of the decade” by London’s Telegraph, Into the Little Hill will be performed by the Welsh contralto Hilary Summers and the Finnish soprano Anu Komsi, Benjamin’s muses for whom he “designed” the work and with whom the opera was premiered in 2006 in Paris. The Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern will perform four varied concerts—two conducted by Benjamin, one of chamber music and the other including works by Varèse and American icon Frank Zappa, with whom Ensemble Modern collaborated in 1992 and whose music they recorded in 2002. The 2010 Ojai Music Festival welcomes the return of two 2008 Ojai artists, American composer and conductor Brad Lubman, and pianist Eric Huebner. With the upcoming Festival, Ojai’s musical family is expanded with first-time appearances, including contralto Hilary Summers; soprano Anu Komsi; the Bay area viol group, Wildcats Viols comprising Joanna Blendulf, Julie Jeffrey and Elisabeth Reed; California Institute of the Arts faculty member and internationally renowned North Indian Classical Music specialist Aashish Khan, sarode, and collaborator Javad Ali Butah, tabla; and soloists from the Ensemble Modern: Hermann Kretzschmar, a pianist since 1985; Megumi Kasakawa, viola; Patrick Judt who has worked with the ensemble since 2006; pianist Ueli Wiget, a member since 1986; and Dietmar Wiesner, flute and a founding member of the Ensemble Modern. Detailed concert program information is included below. Visit OjaiFestival.org for detailed programming information, multimedia video/audio clips, artist biographies, and more. In addition to the Festival’s core concerts, Ojai’s eclectic Beyond the Bowl events include late-night and afternoon Raga performances by Aashish Khan and friends free to the general public. In addition, George Benjamin performs improvisational piano to the classic silent film “Vampyre” by Carl T. Dreyer. Beyond the Bowl events are free, with priority seating given to Festival subscribers and donors followed by a release of limited tickets for the general public. An Ojai tradition, the Festival Symposium allows audiences to become immersed in the Festival programming, moderated by former artistic director and Dean of the Juilliard School, Ara Guzelimian. The three-part symposium will take place at Matilija Auditorium and will include an exploration of The 21st Century Musician, a Conversation with George Benjamin, and an introduction to The World of Zappa. Symposium panel guests will include 2010 Ojai musicians, along with special guests and Ojai alumni. One hour before each Libbey Bowl concert, musicologist and internationally recognized lecturer Christopher Hailey will offer Concert Insights, a discussion of the related concert with featured artists. Concerts will take place outdoors at the Libbey Bowl under a canopy of live oaks and sycamore. Other Festival events will be held at Libbey Park, the Ojai Theatre, the Libbey Park Tennis Courts, and Matilija Auditorium, the site of the original Festival concerts in 1947. Audiences are invited and encouraged to participate in all Festival events and can find additional info at OjaiFestival.org, or contact (805) 646-2094 for more information and to make reservations. 64th
OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL, June 10–13, 2010 Thursday,
June 10 3:30-5:00
pm Festival Symposium 8:00
pm Concert 10:30
pm Beyond the Bowl event - FREE 11:00
am – 2:15 pm Festival Symposium 8:00
pm Concert 11:00
pm Beyond the Bowl event– FREE 11:00
am Concert 8:00
pm Concert 5:30
pm Concert George Benjamin is one of the outstanding composers of his generation. Born in 1960, Benjamin started to play the piano at the age of 7, and began composing almost immediately. In 1976, he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study composition with Olivier Messiaen and piano with Yvonne Loriod, after which he worked with Alexander Goehr at King’s College, Cambridge. Benjamin’s first orchestral work, Ringed by the Flat Horizon, was performed at the BBC Proms when he was 20; since then his works have continued to be played across the world. The 2006 Festival d’Automne in Paris premiered his first operatic work, Into the Little Hill, a collaboration with playwright Martin Crimp, which has toured widely on both sides of the Atlantic and won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2008. It received its London premiere in a new production at the Royal Opera House in February 2009. His most recent work, Duet for piano and orchestra, was the Roche commission for the 2008 Lucerne Festival, where he was composer-inresidence, and was premiered there by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and The Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst. George Benjamin appears regularly as a conductor with the world’s leading ensembles and orchestras, and he has conducted numerous world premieres, including works by Rihm, Chin, Grisey, and Ligeti. He was the founding curator of the South Bank’s Meltdown Festival, and was artistic consultant to the BBC’s retrospective of 20th century music, Sounding the Century. Since 2001 he has been the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King’s College, London. He is a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et Lettres, a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and has been awarded honorary fellowships by the Guildhall School, the Royal Academy, and the Royal College of Music. In January 2010, extensive celebrations of Benjamin’s music in San Francisco and London marked his 50th birthday. Founded in 1980 and based in Frankfurt since 1985, the Ensemble Modern (EM) is one of the world’s leading ensembles for the performance of new music. Currently, the EM is comprised of 18 soloists from Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Poland, and Switzerland, all of whom provide the ensemble with its rich cultural background. The Ensemble Modern is recognized for its uniquely collaborative approach to programming and to performance, with all members sharing responsibility for the creation and implementation of projects, including musical theatre, dance and video projects, chamber music, ensemble and orchestral concerts. Touring extensively—with approximately 100 concerts each year—the EM strives to achieve the highest degree of authenticity by working closely with composers. The musicians rehearse an average of 70 new works each year, 20 of which are world premieres. In 2003, the German Federal Cultural Foundation nominated the Ensemble Modern as one of Germany’s beacons of contemporary culture. The Ensemble Modern is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Deutsche Ensemble Akademie, the city of Frankfurt, the state of Hesse, the GEMA Foundation and the GVL. Ojai Music Festival Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris is recognized as one of the most visionary leaders and innovative concert programmers in the music industry. His tenure with the Festival began in 2004, and extends through 2014. As Artistic Director, Morris is responsible for identifying and engaging each Festival music director and, in collaboration with each music director, for curating Festival programming in the fearless tradition for which Ojai has become renowned. In February 2004, Morris retired as executive director of The Cleveland Orchestra, a position he held since 1987. He served in a number of capacities, including general manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1985, where he had overall responsibility for the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Tanglewood, and Symphony Hall. In addition to his Ojai post, Morris is artistic director of the new Spring for Music Festival at New York’s Carnegie Hall to debut in May 2011, and is also active as a consultant, teacher, and writer. Now in its sixth decade, the Ojai Music Festival continues its unmatched musical legacy and international reputation for artistic excellence, adventurous programs, and creative artistic camaraderie. Each year, the Festival welcomes a new music director who creates his/her own artistic programming with an emphasis on contemporary music. The 2010 Festival features British composer/conductor George Benjamin. All concerts take place at the outdoor Libbey Bowl, on a site held sacred by the Chumash Indians, where inspiration and creativity still flourish. From its founding in 1947, a healthy spirit of eclecticism and musical daring flourished, and the Ojai Music Festival remains a world champion of contemporary programming that is enchanting and challenging. With the1954 appointment of Lawrence Morton as artistic director, Ojai embraced an enduring concept whereby the artistic director engages a different music director each year, around whose musical ideas that year’s Festival is built. Among the Festival’s diverse music directors have been such renowned musical personalities as John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, Ingolf Dahl, Peter Maxwell Davies, Lukas Foss, John Harbison, Oliver Knussen, Kent Nagano, Igor Stravinsky, Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mitsuko Uchida, Robert Spano, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, David Robertson, and eighth blackbird. Considered a highlight of the summer classical music season, the Ojai Music Festival is a four-day series of concerts, symposia, and auxiliary events set in the idyllic Ojai Valley, known as California’s Shangri-la. Tickets
and Information Tickets for the Festival Symposium on June 10 in Matilija Auditorium at Matilija Junior High School are $15 in advance or $20 the day of the event. The Symposium on June 12 is $35 in advance and $40 day of the event. Matilija Junior High School is located at 703 El Paseo Road. Directions to Ojai, as well as information about lodging, concierge services for visitors, and other Ojai activities, are also available on the Ojai Web site. # # # Ojai Music Festival:
Gina Gutierrez, ggutierrez@ojaifestival.org (805) 646-2094 For photos, additional bios, and Ojai information visit the press page at OjaiFestival.org |
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